You never see photos of a home funeral that depict someone doing paperwork; it is not the part of a DIY funeral that is visualized or sentimentalized in education. In a completely DIY home funeral, somebody close to the family must obtain the death certificate, fill it out properly, track down a physician to sign it, and file it manually with the county clerk, among other things. If the person died in a care facility or

Anna Benton​

​Opal John was born at home, as were all her siblings. The family has a farm in rural Wisconsin, and they proudly live as self-sufficiently as possible. The children were all home-schooled. In her early twenties, reflecting on home births, Opal wondered if home funerals were also possible. She had never heard of it, but she knew how to start researching her question. ​

Tim Howell

There was a time.  a long stretch of time - in American history, where the home funeral was the de facto choice for death care. Of course we would hold a wake and a funeral in our parlor - where else are we going to do it? But that changed. As it so often does in America, Capitalism won out and enterprising folks figured out how to turn a funeral into a profit-generating business. ​